Ministries
Read our November 2011 “ministry summary”
The Maasai churches are growing and multiplying: Meisisi Enkai! (May God be praised!) as the Maasai believers say. Maasai followers of Christ are sharing the gospel with former tribal enemies and have begun planting churches among neighboring tribes. Maisisi Olaitoriani! (Let us praise the Lord!)
Yet the Maasai church leaders have identified several areas where growth is still needed. These include development of curriculum (teaching and training materials in the local language addressing concerns within the local cultural context), discipleship and leadership training and training of teachers.
Curriculum Development
teaching and training materials in the local language for the local churches
Have you ever tried to teach a lesson, or a lesson series, using only the text of the Bible with no other helps? For most of us, unless we have years of experience, that’s a daunting task. What if you’ve only learned to read a few years ago through an adult literacy program, and you’ve only had a copy of the Bible in your language for a year or so? Even harder.
In December 2008, we completed (by the help and grace of God) a curriculum entitled “Enkinosata Ororei Le Nkai” (Eating the Word of God). It was written in the Maa language for the Maasai churches. This is a book of ten lessons on how to understand the Bible, together with teachers’ training material. A former CMF-Maasai missionary who read it said that anyone who taught from it would receive the equivalent of a teachers’ training course.
This project was a collaborative effort of CMF together with the Community Christian Church, and the copies of the books are now in the hands of the church leaders.
Patrick Ole Sayialel, our primary co- worker for this project, told us in September 2009, “the book of enkinosata ororei le nkai is realy a big blessing in our churches.” The Maasai church leaders also shared with their Turkana brothers about the lessons; as a result we have prepared an English draft for the Turkana believers to begin work on a translation (and cultural adaptation).
In June 2010, other missionaries took copies of the “Enkinosata” lessons to consider using them among the Maasai of Tanzania and also among the Samburu of Kenya. (Maasai land is artificially divided between southern Kenya and northern Tanzania, a result of colonialism. The Samburu are a related tribe of the Maasai, in central Kenya. Linguists consider the Samburu language to be a dialect of Maa — there is about a 70% overlap.)
Currently efforts are under way to train some of the Maasai writer-editors who helped us with this project to become curriculum developers and lesson writers for the Community Christian Church.
Bible & Missions Training
Christian Missionary Fellowship (CMF) places a priority on biblical and missions training. In Kenya, much of this training takes place at Turkana Bible Training Institute (in Lodwar; CMF has another team working among the Turkana people) together with Mission Institute East Africa (MIEA). MIEA serves all of the CCC, across tribal lines, and has replaced two older schools among the Maasai: Narok Bible Bible Training Institute (NBTI, in Ewaso Ng’iro, about 45 minutes outside of Narok) and Kajiado Bible Training Institute (in Ng’atataek, about an hour south of Kajiado). From 2007-2010, we were most involved at NBTI. From 2010 on, Joshua has been one of the teachers of MIEA, developing two courses for the curriculum.
(Visit our google map for the locations of the training centres.)
Mission Institute East Africa (MIEA)
MIEA was founded by our teammate Shawn Redford (see here for a list of our CMF-Kenya teammates), working together with key Maasai church leaders, in response to the changing needs of our maturing pastors and elders.
From the MIEA student handbook:
Our Mission: The Mission Institute of East Africa (MIEA) exists to train Africans to carry out the mission of God.
Our Vision: We believe that African missionaries can effectively minister towards critical African issues, such as the AIDS crisis, evangelism in unreached and war-torn areas, and the ever-growing number of orphans. This represents a viable long-term solution to issues that have often overwhelmed non-African churches. We believe that African churches need two foundational directives to have significant missionary impact: (1) A Biblical Basis for mission (2) Leaders who are actively involved in missionary activity. This will result in churches that are intentional in their local and global missionary witness.
Our Training: Since, we believe that God is raising up African missionaries to become a world-wide missionary force for the kingdom of God, we also believe that missiological training is essential for the growth of the church, regardless of whether one’s future role will be that of a pastor or a missionary. As much as possible, the faculty at MIEA will try to teach within their specialty areas and experience in order to provide the greatest depth and skill in the training. As a MIEA student, you will gain the greatest benefit if you take the courses in sequence (i.e. 100 level courses prior to 200 level and so on). Some courses are required for all MIEA students. At the same time, electives are offered that allow you to pursue a specific passion or calling within your training. We pray that you might join us at MIEA and train to change the world for Christ.
Joshua teaches “Equipping the Local Congregation for Biblical Understanding” (or simply “Eating the Word of God”; using the Enkinosata lessons as a text) and “History of Mission” for MIEA.
Narok Bible Training Institute (NBTI) (2003-2011)
Started in 2003, NBTI’s central goal was to train Christian leaders with a burden to serve Christ. James Sinkua and John Sosio served as Principal, with a Kenyan Board of Directors that met twice a year to review budget, set policy, and discuss major issues of the Institute. Classes met for 3 weeks at a time in January, April, July, and October. Teaching was offered at 3 levels — Basic (courses in the Maa language), Advanced (courses in English) and Audit. Joshua served as a board member and a teacher for NBTI. (There is a picture of Joshua with the students from his “Spiritual Disciplines” course on the About the Barrons page.) In November 2010, the NBTI board adopted the new MIEA curriculum. In March 2011, the NBTI board voted to dissolve and transfer its assets and heritage to MIEA.
Discipleship
“As you go,” Jesus commands his followers, “make disciples.” Note that it doesn’t say “make converts” or “teach people to pray the so-called sinners’ prayer” or “baptize people and then you’re done”! All who call themselves “christian” are commanded to “make disciples.” We pray that we will not be guilty of merely making disciples of ourselves, of our American sending churches, or of CMF (see Matthew 23.15 for a warning about this!). Instead, we long to make disciples of Jesus.
“All authority on heaven and earth is given to me,” Jesus says, “therefore, as you go, MAKE DISCIPLES of all nations, BAPTIZING them and TEACHING them to OBEY ALL I HAVE COMMANDED YOU. And surely I will be with you, even to the very end of the age.” With such a mandate, CMF has a commitment to make disciple-making disciples and to plant church-planting churches.
Discipleship Training School (DTS)
The Maasai DTS was started in 2000 by Andre Brink, a South African partner of CMF’s work. The DTS meets in a former CMF mission house deep in the forest of the Loita Hills in Maasailand. Francis Yenko, who attended a DTS run by Youth With A Mission) in 2001, is now the Maasai Director of the DTS. Andre leads a new ministry called “Walking with Maasai,” which focuses on Christian stewardship of the environment. Their new base camp, located an hour’s walk from the Maasai DTS, welcomes visitors for unique and ecologically sound safaris.
Francis Yenko, his wife Janet, daughter Yamat, and son Melita
The purpose of the Maasai DTS, as stated by Francis, is “To fully train upcoming leaders of local churches on who God is and what He has done for us all; to know how much God desires a relationship with us and loves us.” It meets for a three-month time period, with classes being limited to 12 students. The last 2 weeks of the course are spent in evangelism in conjunction with local church leaders in various areas of Maasailand. The DTS meets twice a year, with all new students for each session.
Francis is one of our closest Maasai friends, and we enjoy staying in his home whenever we can. He is also a tremendous aid to us in our curriculum development projects. Whenever we have an opportunity, we help him out by teaching an intensive course during a DTS session.
The DTS campus is located in Tiamanang’en in Olorte in the Loita Hills. (Visit our google map for the location.) However, Francis is developing plans to have a “mobile” DTS to help serve our churches in Trans-Mara and Kajiado. We have also discussed together the possibility of taking the DTS up to Turkana.
Jackson La Sangurukuri (pictured below, standing beneath the hand of the waving student) was a Samburu student during our DTS session in 2008. He returned to Samburu land and, by September 2010, has been instrumental in planting three new churches among the Samburu! (with two more church plants underway).
The Barrons with the Yenkos and DTS students in June 2008
Sunday School Teachers
The Olephishet sunday school is an exception, its teacher has been well-discipled.
While living in the bush, sometimes we would be asked to teach Sunday school for the local village congregation. The two ladies who normally teach love all of the children deeply, love the Lord devotedly, and know the names and family histories of each of the up to 120 children who may come. They also know their Bibles fairly well, even though they are newly literate, and still struggle to read aloud “at speed.” But for many Kenyans, “teaching” refers to the sort of rote memorization (responsive thinking neither required nor encouraged) of the government schools. So, in spite of our struggles with communicating in the Maa language without a translator our first term, word got back to us that the Maasai sunday school children like it when the “ILASHAMPA” (the white people) teach, because we “don’t teach, we just tell stories.”
But they are able to repeat the stories to their parents, and explain the application and repeat the memory verse! So clearly, they have been taught a lesson.
So we are involved not only in producing materials to help those willing to teach do so, but we are also involved in teachers’ training.
- Sunday School Teachers’ Training Seminar
